But in particular I think that vending machines can be about experiences and stories.

So tea. Or coffee. Caffeinated beverages are about waking you up.

What you do is you make the entire front face of the vending machine glass, but it's a giant glass "V" shape that inclines into itself, so that at the top of the machine it's very wide, and lower down at waist height the "V" shape both narrows and pulls back into itself, tilting back into the machine.

Then when you choose your tea (or coffee), the liquid is shot as if through the barrel of a gun BANG directly at your face. We use facial recognition computer chips or something for this. It blasts, and splashes, as hard and fierce as possible. And then the tea (or coffee) is runs down the inside slope of the "V" and is channeled in and falls eventually into a cup at the bottom apex where it finally drips in. Then you have your drink. (But you don't need it, because you're already awake.)

The pretence that we tell people is that tea (or coffee) is better aerated, and the fire-hose of piping hot beverage straight between the eyes is integral to the process of making it taste awesome. Really it's about the experience of it and telling your friends. This is the vending machine I would like to make.

Also I have an idea for a restaurant.

Lucky meat.

Take 64 steaks, or better: 64 cows.

Divide the cows into two groups, 32 each, and name one heads and the other tails.

Flip a coin.

Whichever group of cows loses is butchered and the produce destroyed, rendered inedible.

Now take the winning group of 32 cows. Divide them in two. Flip a coin. 16 win, 16 are destroyed.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, you have 2 cows. Flip a coin, one wins, destroy the loser, make steaks out of the winner.

These steaks are from a lucky cow: it has won 6 times in a row, a winning steak from a winning streak.

By the magic of tapu - or, to put it another way, the Law of Association from the laws of magic - the lucky meat will carry with it the luck of the animal. By eating the lucky meat, the eater too becomes lucky. Imagine yourself being presented with, and eating, lucky meat, knowing that the meat has somehow been chosen, somehow won the lottery and ended up on your plate! Of course this is also a commentary on the wasteful nature of agro-industry, or maybe it's a commentary on what makes luxury items or the nature of scarcity and the tenuous non-existence of value, etc. Honestly it's about meat, when it comes down to it.

I think you could charge a lot more for lucky meat.

Some might argue that none of the cows are lucky.

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San Francisco hardware-ish coffee morning, What's new on Machine Supply, Machine Supply, Filtered for unknown lands, Coffee morning next week, Filtered for coherent narratives, Filtered for bad things, and More on conversational UIs.
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